“All that GLITTERS”…Add Sparkle to your page!

The Magic of Beginnings… December.. what a fabulous time of year! To me this time of year is so magical. Whether there is snow on the ground or not, it is the beginning of Winter, and the time of year that sparks Magic in our lives. It’s that special time of year that brings sparkles and magic to that child in every one of us! Today we have wonderful additions to the Magic of Beginnings Collaboration. We have a great 2 template package by Soco, and a terrific vintage mini kit by Vero. Let’s get started with our page!

What I like about templates is that they are a starting point or base for your page. Here I have taken Soco’s template #2 and with a few tweaks have made it something that works for me. Vero’s mini kit for me is vintage and retro which I like. I don’t have any children, and so I often look back at old photos of myself as a child, and enjoy scrapping those memories. With both of these parts of the collaboration, a thought popped into my head about using a vintage photo of me on a visit to Santa.

The photo, while it is 52 years old now, (yup, considered vintage- ha ha), is perfect for the look I am going for, although it is very yellow-ish. Before I start working on my layout, I want to adjust the photo so it will go with the feel of Vero’s kit that I will be using.

I first duplicate the photo, and I give the photo on the lower layer, a “gradient map” layer blend mode of black and white. On the duplicate photo layer, I change the color photo layer to soft light blend mode and then reduce the opacity a bit to 76% with a 96% fill. This gets rid of that really ugly yellow tint that will not go with my papers and elements from the kit.

Now the template has 1 large photo/paper area and that is where I want the large photo. The two smaller squares in the horizontal line are not going to work for me, so I turn them vertical. I decide I am going to reuse the same photo of me in black and white, and split it between the two squares to duplicate it for continuity.

Okay. I am good with the photos I want to work with. Now I am going to play with the kit and the papers. I start layering the papers & elements, via the template guide. I also use the Filter > Sketch > Halftone pattern > Line filter for the “ribbon look” under the papers.

I have also recolored a few things to match my photo like adding a linear light blend mode and color overlay to the bow to change it from blue to maroon. I have layered papers and elements around my photos and have added my title and journaling. I review my page so far. To me, it is lacking “pizzazz”.

To fix that, I am going to add some sparkle to the vellum stars and to the yellow background matte, to bring my layout to life.

In your layer palette, select the yellow matte layer.

Now you want to select Filter > Noise >Add Noise… I set the amount to 21.09 and selected Gaussian and Monochromatic.

This is now how the matte looks with that “pizzazz” sparkle from the glitter:

Now all I need to do is add noise for that same glitter on the vellum stars to give the page some balance. I am selecting the stars layer and doing the same thing… Filter > Noise > Add Noise with same settings as the matte under the photo.

And that is how to add a little glitter to make your pages pop. Simple, fast & easy! Try using the “add noise” on text, or even when you add a shadow, in the style “fx” section, you can add noise to the shadow to give an interesting effect. Explore and enjoy! I really loved playing and creating with both Soco’s template, and Vero’s mini kit . Both were perfect for my vintage/retro photo!

I hope you enjoy too!

The Magic of Beginnings Giveaway

On to the next installment of the Scrapaneers December Giveaway – The Magic of Beginnings.

A big THANK YOU to all the amazing designers who contributed to this Mega Collection. The Magic of Beginnings is perfect for your holiday and December sequential projects, but it is about so much more than that. Think about plans and goals for the new year, starting a new stage of life, new relationships or simply the start of exciting new adventures. This collection is so big we could not fit it all into one preview, so here is glimpse at the collection in two parts (we couldn’t fit everything in the preview so know there’s MORE!):

Magic of Beginnings download links are no longer available.

Don’t forget to check back on Wednesday, December 14 for the next set of downloads, and an inspirational tutorial from Janelle.

I haven’t heard of any issues.. I am on google chrome and it automatically downloads… perhaps clear cookies or try a different browser before downloading. So glad you are excited about the glitter Annie! I can’t wait to see a page you create.. Please post it in the gallery so we can all ooh and ah 🙂

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